Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Lucifer Effect.

From the Lucifer Effect.'""Arendt’s phrase 'the banality of evil' continues to resonate because genocide has been unleashed around the world and torture and terrorism continue to be common features of our global landscape. We prefer to distance ourselves from such a fundamental truth, seeing the madness of evildoers and senseless violence of tyrants as dispositional characters within their personal makeup. Arendt’s analysis was the first to deny this orientation by observing the fluidity with which social forces can prompt normal people to perform horrific acts." (From Chapter 12, pages 288-289)"Our usual take on evil focuses on the violent, destructive actions of perpetrators, but the failure to act can also be a form of evil, when helping, dissent, disobedience, or whistle-blowing are required. One of the most critical, least acknowledged contributors to evil goes beyond the protagonists of harm to the silent chorus who look but do not see, who hear but do not listen. Their silent presence at the scene of evil doings makes the hazy line between good and evil even fuzzier. We ask next: Why don’t people help? Why don’t people act when their aid is needed? Is their passivity a personal defect of callousness, of indifference? Alternatively, are there identifiable social dynamics once again at play?" (From Chapter 13, page 314)"

AS you can see I'm reading a disturbing book at the moment called the Lucifer Effect and it's by Philip Zimbardo, a very well known and well respected psychologist and professorThe Lucifer Effect is a book essentially about why good people do evil things, and Zimbardo himself is the man behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study he conducted in 1971. In that study, normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.Last night as I lay propped in bed I read about the genocide in Rwanda, the butchery and torture of thousands of Chinese at the hands of Japanese advance and finally I had no choice but to put the book down and try to sleep. I lay in the dark, listening to the not exactly gentle snore of the paramour, pondering, trying to make sense of what I had read.I don't mind telling you I had nightmares and today I am very cranky and even after a disgusting breakfast of egg white omelette and coffee I am no less narked.I am also deeply troubled. Zimbardo makes a very valid point in the book, that before mass murder, before war, before torture and violence is committed the warning signs are in place. Propaganda is racked up, warring factions are dehumanised. We see it all the time, all around us. Iraq-ragheads, sand niggers, Americans and European- are infidels and filth, women the world over are second class citizens, if they are vocal and who demand their rights they are feminazis, gay men are 'faggots and sinners', lesbians are dykes, Christians are backward bible thumping fairy believing morons, intolerance is rampant, and tolerance where it should not be is allowed. It happened here in my own country, where for many a year 'the troubles' pitted neighbour against neighbour and the Bloody Sunday and the Omagh bomb where the apogees of sectarian hatred.I read a fair smattering of blogs, some far right, some far left, most centric and the gulf between people is growing ever wider and more vocal. Lines are being drawn, even if they are faint. Something is rumbling.

Are we as a people becoming jaded by war and bloodshed around us? What's happening In Guantanamo Bay? Why haven't I wondered about this before? Why are soldiers in Iraq? There was no WMD found, so why the continued occupation? I'm not going down the stupid road of 'merika evil rest of world good' either, that's nonsense, but I would like to know what the thinking on this is. I would especially like my American readers to voice an opinion. What's the feeling? Will there be an Iranian war next? Is there a war between Islam and the west on the horizon? Between the right and the left?Who do I believe, the media? Which media? Is everything black and white? Where should a person stand? Should I just carry on going about my daily business, eating, going out with friends and pretending there's nothing going on? According to Zimbardo that's just what folk do when evil thrives. The Germans did it while their fellow country men were slaughtered, but that idea makes me feel terrible. And besides, Ireland is not involved in anything, well except Shannon stop overs. What do you mean global wars are on my doorstep?Am I part of the problem? Should I be doing something? What? What should a semi- intelligent 34 woman be doing anyway? Okay, I don't live in a vacuum, the world is there before me. So why the ennui? Why the 'tut tut' as I read the newspaper and then back to whatever I was doing before?Bah, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to think about anything. But I promise you this, last night as I lay in the dark I gave myself a firm kick up the backside. I need to read more, learn more, exist on this plane. I don't want to become part of a problem, even if I'm not a hundred percent sure what exactly that problem is yet.Sorry for rambling, yours in confuddled thinking on a sunny sunny day, the dark clouds are my own.FMC

37 Comments:

Apparently the 80/20 rule holds out not just for business apps, but for people too. Had a really interesting lecture from a guy who explained how the Nazis rose to power in this way - in a bizarre confluence of circumstances, the dominant 20% happened to be the ones with all the power, and they were all fucking mentalists. The other 80%, the apathetic majority of the population, followed like sheep, and so began one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, without anyone really seeming to do very much about it. It's a really frightening concept. I must get that book.

Great post fmc. The things that keep us awake at night. that's why I tend not to read "thought provoking stuff" in bed, it just keeps me awake.

Agree, it is worrying where the Iranian situation is going, and have bad gut feeling that that's where Bush and his neo-cons want to go, and are just looking for the excuse.

I like Gandhi's idea, "be the change you want to see in the world", I suppose he means start with ourselves and that eventually has an affect on those around us and so on. The Ripple Effect. But then if I may be cycnical, a nuclear bomb has a similar ripple effect, the difference, it destroys all before it.

oh fmc, i will try my hardest not to write a novella on the american opinion - primarily because it's never a good way to start the day, and because i really can only speak for myself (although there is resonance among the ranks).

W stole the office. Jeb delivered florida. then he ran and actually won. we're in iraq for oil (there are some interesting statistics on the amount of money oil companies make per day we're in iraq). W wants the middle east, because if he controls the world's source of oil, he controls the world. the american public says no to the war, many many politicians say no to the war, but we're still there.

take 9-11. 5 months prior, bush had given the taliban money for training. then all of a sudden we're after them? and no one seemed to notice when we went from blaming the taliban to blaming saddam hussein for 9-11. (polls of the american people are disturbing... an overwhelming majority believe it was hussein now). but the bushes have been best buds with the husseins for ages now....

it's a mess, fmc, a big, bloody, senseless mess. and the media doesn't help. independent news sources seem to be best, i find news from other countries provides a more rounded view, but it's still not everything.

what makes me the most sick is that more people vote for american idol in one night than in any presidential election, ever.

i'll stop.... but you should read 1984 if you haven't already.... it seems to be the direction the US is heading.

“Why the 'tut tut' as I read the newspaper and then back to whatever I was doing before?”As you seem to be in philosophical mode, have you every read Kant’s Critiques? If not, I recommend you read the Critique of Pure Reason. In The Fragmented Will, “Kant realised that the source of evil is rather prosaic, namely, giving priority to the principle of self-love, and it is this ordinariness that presents the greatest danger.” (Susan Neiman). Susan Neiman puts it beautifully in a nutshell in Evil in Modern Thought-An Alternative History of Philosophy when she says

“When innocents suffer, when hideous crimes are performed with impunity, when vice is rewarded and virtue punished, when deception undermines all trust, in a nutshell, when the allotment of happiness is drastically divorced from the possession of virtue, we are seized by a feeling of moral homelessness. Our illusion that ethical principles guide the course of the world suddenly vanishes. As a consequence, a sense of futility plagues our actions, for it seemsuseless to persevere in our moral intentions in a world utterly indifferent to them.”

I think many of us appear complicit because we say and do nothing in the face of evil - but it is a form of self preservation, as we ourselves might get picked on if we dare to venture “outside the gang”. I still remember the shock and horror I felt when I first read “Lord of the Flies”.

Everyone obsesses about Iraq and no-one seems to give a flying fuck about Darfur. I used to rail against all the injustices in the world, now I just try and keep those I can influence a bit honest.

I haven't read the book but the descriptions of it reminded me that I totally bought into the premise of Lord of the Flies when I was in school. Given half a chance, most of us will behave like savages.

Even looking at the not-as-bad-as-people-say "The Wind that Shakes the Barley", I wonder how far off a police state we were in Ireland in the 1920's? Germany could have been Ireland and either side of the civil war could have been responsible for it.

I can tell you that most Americans feel pretty powerless at the moment. The mere fact of Bush even being in power leaves us no confidence in our electoral system at all. What jmae says here is absolutely true.

What can you do when no matter what the voters actually SAY, Bush's political machine and big oil and defense contractors do exactly what they want, and pervert the system to justify it. And most of us are working so hard just to make ends meet financially, and leave ourselves very little mental and physical energy to do anything but get disgusted, vote our hearts, and hope for the best in the NEXT election. And still be cynical enough about it that we don't all jump off high buildings when the same shit happens again.

It's hard to know what to do. What's that saying about "Evil triumphs when good people do nothing", or something like that.

I get incredibly irate when people watch TV and see atrocities and disasters, and say "oooh it's awful" in a voyeuristic kind of way. This new footage of the genocide in Darfur risks more of this - I'm torn between wanting people to know the realities of how evil humans can be, and not wanting them to just watch and say "ooooh" and then change the topic to their home renovations.

I'm not really sure what my point is... But I know that it's actually not that hard to get out there and make a difference. It's about recognising the worth of that difference that every individual can make. Well not just recognising, but getting off our arses to make the difference and be the difference. It is hard to know what to do that's different, but I know that if we all trust our guts and take the leap, the world would be a better place.

Carolyn said it's not hard to make a difference - we can all quote people from history who "made a difference" but did they, did they really? If so, why does history keep on repeating itself? I'm an eternal optimist, but trying to bring about change in man's inhumanity to man seems to me to be an exercise in futility. FMC, you have opened a whole bag of worms here!

Eek, well I wasn't trying to make everyone else feel as confuddled as I am, I'm just trying to get my heard around the almost futile impotant sensation I feel building inside me, and I wanted to see what y'all thought. I too am one of those folk who say, 'ooh that's terrible,' But I'm wondering, if I think it's so bloody terrible what am I going to do about it? What can I do about anything? Or do I really think it's so terrible at all?I like to think that I am a good-ish person, but perhaps I'm just a head in the sand good-ish person. There is more I can do, I can add my voice and my actions to something instead of my tut tut.But first I need to learn more, and understand more, and question more, instead of blithely blundering on as normal, in my safe world, simply because I can. Again, apologies for worm cans.

As to the meat of what you're saying, I'm as confused and troubled. I don't know how to deal with some of the information we get in a way that makes any moral sense. In some ways globalisation is a lie. The world may seem smaller with all our communication revolutions but people in different countries are still living worlds apart from each other. Hell, the rich and poor in America live in vastly different worlds to each other.

I can say this about America though, and the current administration. They have never once asked the American people to sacrifice anything. After 9/11 when American were aching to contribute to the effort, the President told us, to go to that mall and the movies; "take your wife out to dinner," he sai, or the terrorists have won. Back then he was still saying it was every American's right to drive huge gas-guzzling trucks to go to the super-market if we wanted - "because that's what freedom means." There was an economic reason for this, of course, but little or no leadership. God forbid the people, the voters should feel any kind of a pinch - I still have to be re-elected for another term. In this he got the American character completely wrong. Americans, for all their flaws - and we all have 'em - do care deeply about what's happening in Iraq. They feel lied to and stymied, and pretty powerless, as Andraste says - the Democrats don't have much of a clue how to proceed from here now, either.

When we went to war with Iraq, 4 flaming years ago, again, people wanted to contribute to the war effort. People were on the telly, on the news, all over the place asking, what can we do? People used to hearing of the sacrifices of past wars: using less oil, conserving energy etc. We're told not to worry, carry on as usual, it's all in hand.

Only lately were we told we were addicted to oil - which we already knew, but isn't a leader suppose to lead from the front - how come he's still on chapter 1 of My Pet Goat when we're all having to learn the hard truths in Chapter 6 of Climate Change and greenhouse gases and the potential for the Gulf Stream to just stop as the ice-caps melt and the water becomes less salty and dense and all the worlds current change, and extremes of weather?

It's difficult not to be a myopic nation when the leadership is so myopic. The thing is, American s are paying attention now, because they've seen this isn't just myopia it's catastrophic myopia.

The media carries its share of the blame too. I can count on one hand the number of times in the last month I've seen Darfur in a mainstream news report. The media here are the bitches of advertising-agencies and gloom doesn't sell - particularly gloom that doesn't involve Americans. Sure, Darfur's a tragedy, but it's not really our problem is it? - we're only the world's policeman when there are white faces and black interests involved (oil). Africa has nothing to do with us - it's a lost cause anyway. And besides, we don't have the troops.

We can't go to war with Iran, even if we wanted to because the military is so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan (when we remember about Afghanistan, that is). We are a big muscley sitting duck in the middle-east at the moment - damned if we stay now, and damned if we don't. It's a no win. Iran can taunt us all it likes there's not a thing we can do until we get out of Iraq and recover our military a little. They've jsut put the national guard on its second tour of duty in Iraq (the national guard - the guys who're meant to help out in federal disasters like Katrina) with less than the minimum 2 months required training and not fully eqipped either. The returning wounded are coming back to an overwhelmed veteran's system and often having to live in squalid, way-below-grade baraks while awaiting treatment.

Morale is low all over America and the leadership (including the Democrats) has been tried, but found lacking. They encouraged the nation not to worry, to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes and, as "The Lucifer Effect" points out, that is hardly something people need any more encouragement to do. Casual sins of omission are as evil as those committed.

It's a great time for a book like this. I saw an author interview with the guy and it looks great. We ordered it and it should be here any day.

I could write a book on the US right now, but I don't have the time. Like I said over at my place, Americans have had a disastrous experiment in "plain talking and honesty" over the last 8 years, and I think almost all of them deeply regret it. Some of my extended family are dyed in the wool Republicans who thought GW would be a great president, and I know they are utterly turned off by him now - a little late methinks.

Mostly I feel personally saddened by how the whole US, has been tarred by this. The positive, give a man a chance, optimistic country, I moved to, has lost a little of it’s confidence, over the last few years, (a little introspection isn’t a bad thing). The worst thing is how the rest of the world perceives us. Now when I come home, every other person seems to be quoting Noam Chomsky - one extreme to another.

Re the nature of evil etc, and what an individual can do: I am like the rest of you, you wonder what you can do, but everything feels futile. Probably the greatest thing we can all do is treat every individual we come across with love and respect. It sounds trite, but imagine what difference it would make. I also think that supporting Amnesty International hits a lot of spots at once, and their letter writing campaigns are now online, and if you register you can send letters with a click of a button. They are also successful and they have been putting Darfur front and center for a long time now. The have had an enormous impact over the years.

Also there is the power of filthy lucre. One of the most powerful tools we have is the money in our pockets, if we all were mindful of how we spend it and who gets it and what they do with it, we can change a lot.

"Why are soldiers in Iraq? There was no WMD found, so why the continued occupation? I'm not going down the stupid road of 'merika evil rest of world good' either, that's nonsense, but I would like to know what the thinking on this is. I would especially like my American readers to voice an opinion. What's the feeling? Will there be an Iranian war next? Is there a war between Islam and the west on the horizon? Between the right and the left?"

A basic cliche, but "The love of money is the root of all evil," and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." America is going the way the Roman Empire went. We no longer hold to ideals. Look at your posts on "Size 0"; it's only a matter of time before we have vomitoriums.

The feeling of helplessness is endemic. What good does anyone's vote count, when the politicians have it rigged, anyway? The differences between the Republicans and the Democrats are exceedingly minor. They're both only there to help themselves from the public trough, and ensure their parasitic survival. Americans have stopped thinking of the government as a part of us, and we have started to think instead of the government as an entity in and of itself. We could vote directly for the President, without having an Electoral College, as easily as we could vote for "American Idol," but of course that won't happen, which begs the question: Who benefits from the system staying just the way it is?

Self-loathing is trendy, and fed by the feelings of helplessness, hence the disparaging of a country we supposedly have a voice in, and can make a difference in.

Wars are waged by America for money, and money only. Protecting the corporations has become paramount, and everyone slags them off, but invests in the stock market as fast as they can. People go in to debt to buy things that they will not even want a year from now, because they are "outdated."

We may be trying to keep church and state separate, but we haven't yet learned to be moral without being religious. Left-wing liberals are quick to defend Islam (but not Christianity, an incredibly similar religion), and never mind that the people they are defending would happily blow them up. Islam is no different than Christianity; they are both violent religions, with a history of torture and forced conversions. The moderates in each religion follow along sheep-like, and do not speak up, so we have to put up with extremist assholes like Jerry Falwell and Osama Bin Laden. The media tries to pretend that it's not happening, but we're already engaged in a religious war, and losing, because we're trying to be empathetic and tolerant, when the people we're fighting aren't. Would we have won WWII if we had to be tolerant of the Nazi's view points, tolerant of their differing beliefs? No, I don't think so. When you're at war, it doesn't matter one fuck what the other side believes, or doesn't believe. You have to know what you believe in, and hold true to that, or you will lose. The terrorists know this, and therefore eventually they will likely win. Entropy, chaos and destruction are on their side. Most of the people involved with the terrorist groups do not enjoy a high level of civilization, therefore they have nothing to lose if the world (or them) blows itself up. Brainwashing is easy, and the American people should know it, as we get it every time we turn on the TV.

People complain that America is not doing enough to stop violence and genocide throughout the world, but anytime we send troops or aid to a foreign country, we get bad press for it, and complaints that we weren't there sooner. The world can go fuck, as far as I'm concerned. Playing nanny to foreign countries is a thankless job, and one that we are ill-suited for, when we should be aiding people here at home. Americans are willing to send millions of dollars in aid to Africa, but God forbid someone should have a Mexican here in the country, trying to improve their life. Familiarity breeds contempt, and it's easy to be contemptuous of people who are in your own backyard, even if that backyard is a Third World country that we purposely keep down for money's sake.

I see no solutions other than letting famine, disease, and war take their course. This is the continued pattern of history, of course, and I don't think that we've gotten smart enough to change it at all. We can't save all the people, but by helping just the one person in front of us that needs help, we just might save ourselves.

Don't think I'm going all soft as shite; I'll still be slagging everyone off on my blog as the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

If you really want to know about the genesis of evil, read the 'Political Ponerology' by Andrew Lobachewsky instead.

Zimbardo has no clue. The design of the Stanford experiment was poor and biased to an extreme: "I was sitting there all alone, waiting anxiously for the intruders to break in, when who should happen along but a colleague and former Yale graduate student roommate, Gordon Bower. Gordon had heard we were doing an experiment, and he came to see what was going on. I briefly described what we were up to, and Gordon asked me a very simple question: "Say, what's the independent variable in this study?"

To my surprise, I got really angry at him. Here I had a prison break on my hands. The security of my men and the stability of my prison was at stake, and now, I had to deal with this bleeding-heart, liberal, academic, effete dingdong who was concerned about the independent variable! It wasn't until much later that I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point -- that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist. "

Zimbardo has no business speaking about evil, because he clearly had no basic understanding of it. IN fact, his ignorance about his own role in shaping the results of SPE, which he is now using to build up his carrier, it appaling.

Truth is -- NOT everyone is capable of evil and sadistic behavior, and MOST people want to live in peace. HOwever, deviant sociopaths have a potential to hijack any ideology to foster personal gain of power and money on the basis of sufferingog others. IN his ignorance, Zumbardo inadvertantly works for them; there is a detailed analysis of his book this article.

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About Me

I'm a bouncy, opinionated, messy haired marathon running (!) bibliophile. I wear high heels and have delightful ankles. I'm a devoted drinker. I want a French Bulldog puppy whom I shall call Batman and dress in capes on occasion.
I would also like a pug, whom I shall name Mister Woo. He can remain capeless, but I will make sure he wears a diamante collar at all times.
Both dogs will submit to repeated snorgling and high pitched squeals that only a dolphin would normally tolerate.
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